The Canterbury Murders

by Maureen Ash

  Chacal stumbled back as Bascot’s blade came in low under his guard. Surprise flared in his eyes, but only for a moment, and he made a fierce retaliation. Their blades struck sparks as they met and locked, the two metal shafts slithering down each to the hilts until the pair stood breast to breast, straining against the other. Bascot could feel Chacal’s breath hot against his cheek as he murmured, “Jusqu’à la dernière extrémité, religieux.”

  And a bitter end it proved to be. Bascot twisted, and with a powerful thrust of his shoulder, threw Chacal backwards. The mercenary staggered on his injured leg and almost fell, desperately trying to raise his sword to defend himself. But it was to no avail. The Templar’s blade took him directly in the upper portion of his sword arm, cleaving through the muscle and slicing into the bone beneath. Blood spurted from the wound, and Chacal’s blade fell from his hand as he dropped to his knees, his arm hanging uselessly by his side.

  “Grant me a quick death, Templar, I beg of you,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Deliver the coup de grâce and end this.”

  “No, Chacal, I will not,” Bascot declared. “You have forfeited your right to such a courtesy.”

  The mercenary gave a resigned nod. “So be it,” he replied.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  After Chacal had been incarcerated in a holding cell, Bascot went into the hall and Miles attended to the wound in his arm, binding it up with strips of linen. Although the mercenary’s sword had sliced open his flesh from shoulder to elbow, it had not, fortunately, penetrated too deeply.

  As Miles completed the task, the king and Archbishop Walter walked into the hall, the Earl of Pembroke and Criel just behind. John strode up to the stool on which Bascot was seated.

  “Congratulations, de Marins,” the king said to him as the Templar rose in deference to the monarch’s presence. “Once again you have tracked down a murderer. I am pleased to hear Chacal is under lock and key, but by the look of your arm, he did not come willingly.”

  “No, he did not,” Bascot confirmed.

  “And has he revealed the reason for his crimes?” John asked.

  “No. Beyond an admission that he is guilty of murder,” the Templar replied, “he will say nothing. I questioned him after he was taken to a cell, but he would not reveal if he had an accomplice, nor tell why he conspired in the killing of your two servants. He is adamant in his refusal to give any information.”

  “The bastard!” John exclaimed, but Bascot thought he saw a look of relief in his eyes, even as he denounced the man who had betrayed him. “I will question him myself and see if he is more forthcoming.”

  “I think it would be best to wait until his wounds are attended to before doing so, sire. At the moment, he is near to unconsciousness from loss of blood and his senses are somewhat mazed.”

  “I have sent for a barber-surgeon to treat his wounds,” Criel informed the king, and then added that the mercenaries of Chacal’s band had not been privy to their captain’s crimes and that he had sent for Godeschal de Socienne—who was taking a turn keeping watch at the royal townhouse with some of his men—to come to the bail and take charge of them.

  As he finished speaking, Nicolaa de la Haye and Gianni, escorted by Gilles de Laubrec, came into the hall. Gianni, seeing the bandage on Bascot’s arm, started to run towards him, but Miles, who had moved to one side of the hall at John’s entrance, grasped the lad’s arm and assured him in quiet tones that the Templar’s injury was not serious. In the meantime, Nicolaa approached the king, who was still standing beside Bascot in front of the table on the dais, with the archbishop, William Marshal and Criel by his side. As the castellan began to come forward, there was a commotion at the door, and Isabella rushed into the room, flushed with agitation. Behind her came Yvette, white-faced and biting her lips, along with two men of the archbishop’s episcopal guard. The soldiers stood aside as Isabella, eyes ablaze with fury, sped across the hall to where her husband stood.

  “How dare you order the arrest of my companion without asking my permission,” she shouted at John, and then flung a hand out towards the archbishop’s men-at-arms. “Even though I ordered them not to, these minions of yours have taken her to a cell and put her in chains. You presume too much, husband. I am your queen, and will not suffer myself, or my servants, to be treated in such a fashion.”

  John’s eyes grew hard. “You have only yourself to blame, Isabella,” he said to his wife. “Until such a time as you have learned to comport yourself with the dignity of the rank to which I have raised you, I have no choice but to leave you outside my confidence.”

  The king’s answer rendered Isabella speechless, but only for a moment. As the rest of the company tried to hide their embarrassment at the burgeoning royal argument, and the queen started to frame a sharp retort to her husband’s rebuke, Archbishop Walter made haste to intervene.

  “It was not the king’s order that the guards were following, lady, but mine,” he said, his tone suitably contrite. “I suggested to his majesty that since the woman is suspected of a serious crime, it might be dangerous to your person if she was not taken without delay. I hasten to assure you that my concern was only for your well-being and that I meant no disrespect. If you find it so, please accept my apologies.”

  Walter’s words, spoken in an attitude of deference, mollified Isabella a little, and she pursed her lips and gave a small nod in acceptance of his apology, before turning to John and addressing him again. “Then, husband, I demand to know now what I would have asked if I had been made privy to your intentions earlier. What is this crime of which you believe Marie is guilty?”

  “Collaborating to commit the murders of my washerwoman and steward,” John replied shortly. “The mercenary captain, Chacal, has already admitted his culpability and there is evidence to show that Marie was his accomplice. That is why she has been incarcerated.”

  Isabella quickly seized on the weakness in his statement. “Did Chacal name Marie as his confederate?”

  When the king gave a reluctant shake of his head, the queen gave a smile of satisfaction. “I knew it; this is all supposition. You have no proof of her guilt.”

  Again Archbishop Walter intervened. “We now have evidence that your companion was seen to be on friendly terms with the mercenary, lady, and speaking to him in langue d’oc, a fact she previously denied. That in itself gives cause for suspicion.”

  Isabella waved the objection aside. “Marie always conversed with myself and Yvette in our dialect and would answer any remark put to her, by the mercenary or anyone else, in that language instinctively, not for sinister purposes. That is what must have happened and your witness was mistaken. When you asked her about it that day at the nunnery, it is only natural that she would have forgotten such a trifling incident.”

  Bascot glanced at Yvette, who was standing just behind the queen, and again saw the same look of uncertainty on the young girl’s face as had been there on the day he and Nicolaa had gone to the nunnery. Now that she understood the seriousness of the matter, it was time to try and convince her to tell what she was concealing.

  “The day that myself and Lady Nicolaa came with the king to St. Sepulchre’s,” he said to her, “you told us that you had never spoken to anyone other than your mistress and Marie in the language of your homeland, and I am sure that is true. But you were not asked if you had heard Marie converse with another person in that tongue, so I will now ask you that question. Did you, at any time, hear her speak to someone other than yourself and the queen in langue d’oc?”

  Reluctantly the girl nodded, and Isabella whirled on her. “What is this, Yvette? Why did you not tell me?”

  “I did not think it of any importance, lady,” Yvette said haltingly.

  Ignoring the queen’s interruption, Bascot pressed the girl. “With whom was she conversing?”

  Shamefaced, Yvette admitted it was Chacal. “But nothing they said was about the
two murdered servants,” Yvette quickly added. “I asked Marie about it later and she told me she was asking the mercenary about the security arrangements for our mistress, and giving him an instruction that he was to ensure that his men, who were all very uncouth in appearance,” she interjected with a moue of distaste, “did not intrude on the queen’s privacy while we were staying in the townhouse.”

  Murmuring a silent prayer of thanks that Marie had been arrested before Yvette could betray her knowledge, he asked the girl when she had heard their conversation and what they had said to each other.

  Yvette’s youthful brow wrinkled in concentration. “It was in the early afternoon of the day the washerwoman was killed. Some of the parchment on which my music is written had become wet with seawater while we were crossing the Narrow Sea, and I asked the steward if there was a place where I could lay them out to dry. He told me to go to a little room just off the entryway—it was small and only used, I think, for storing the servants’ cloaks because there were mantles hanging on hooks around the walls—but it had a little table in the middle that he said I could use for my purpose. I had not shut the door firmly and it was just as I was spreading the parchment on the table to dry that I heard Marie speaking to someone in langue d’oc in the hallway.”

  Bascot prompted her to repeat what she remembered of the conversation, and as Yvette went on, he noticed an uneasy glance pass between John and the archbishop as she began to relate what she had heard.

  “They did not say much. The mercenary asked Marie if she had found a way to take care of the matter they had discussed and she said that she had. Then she said that she would leave it to him to resolve the rest of the problem.”

  Yvette now directed her words to the king, explaining why she had not reported the conversation earlier. “As I said, my lord, I asked Marie about it later and she told me she was concerned that one of those loutish guards would trespass upon the queen’s, or mine and Marie’s, privacy under the guise of watching over our safety. They were always leering at the maidservants and passing ribald remarks, so I thought she was right to make it clear that their behaviour was not acceptable.”

  As Yvette finished speaking, Bascot and Nicolaa exchanged a glance. The words Yvette had heard were ambiguous and could be taken in another way than the one Marie had ascribed. The pair could just as easily have been speaking about the arrangements for the murders—that Marie had managed to place the poison in the flavouring mixture and was confirming that Chacal would take the necessary steps to despatch the washerwoman. But there was one further point that needed to be clarified before they could assume this was so. To that end, the Templar asked the girl another question.

  “Yvette, you told us that you had seen Marie coming out of one of the rooms in the townhouse and heard the steward, Inglis, reproaching her for having gone in there without his permission. Do you remember at what time of day this was and which chamber she entered?”

  A frown of bemusement passed over the girl’s face, but after giving the question some moments’ thought, she answered readily enough. “It was before I went into the little room to try and repair the damage that had been done to my music—perhaps an hour before, I think, or maybe a little more. As to which chamber it was, I cannot be certain, but as the steward was speaking so roughly to Marie some men came with kegs of wine and Inglis walked away from her to show them into the room he had seen her coming from, so I think it must have been the buttery.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “That is proof enough for me of the woman’s guilt,” Marshal exclaimed, banging the flat of his hand down with a thump onto the surface of the table on the dais. The rest of the company nodded in solemn agreement. Criel flinched as the reason Chacal had been so insistent about questioning the vintner and his men after their incarceration, and before Bascot and the earl arrived, dawned on him. It could only have been because he had wanted to determine whether or not the two delivery men had overheard Inglis reprimanding Marie for being in the room where the wine was kept. If they had, the constable had no doubt that Chacal would either have made certain of their silence by killing them or have fled with his accomplice. The constable was relieved that he had denied the mercenary admittance to the questioning.

  From her demeanour, it was obvious that Yvette had not been told the details surrounding the steward’s death. She was completely unaware that the poison had been introduced into a honey mixture that was kept in the buttery, and an astonished look came over her face at the company’s reaction to her statement. She turned towards her mistress, seeking an explanation, but Isabella was standing quiet and still, two high spots of colour on her cheeks.

  “Do you still say, wife, that your companion is innocent?” John demanded of Isabella.

  The queen, an expression of defeat on her face, now comported herself with the dignity her husband had accused her of lacking. Drawing herself up to her full small height, she spoke in even tones. “I admit that this evidence gives room for doubt, my lord, but nonetheless, I must protest that it is still circumstantial and her guilt not proven.”

  “Do you wish me to have the woman brought before you for questioning, sire?” Criel asked the king.

  This was the moment John had dreaded. Until he knew for certain why the pair had murdered his servants, he could not let them be interrogated publically. Even though neither prisoner was purported to be a Breton, that did not allay his fear. Chacal, as a mercenary, could be hired by anyone, and might be in the pay of the nobles of Brittany; and the woman, what was known of her before she had appeared in Rouen castle a few months ago? Nothing. Her claim to be from Angoulême might be a complete fabrication. She, too, might have Breton connections that were not known as yet. There was only one way to be certain, and that was to dispose of both of them before they could be questioned before witnesses. In order to do that, he must have time, and the space of one night would suffice.

  With a glance at the archbishop, John made a careful reply to Criel’s enquiry. “No, I think not. The day has been a long one and her examination will keep until the morning. Now that both culprits are safely under lock and key, my wife and I can return to the royal townhouse and take some rest.” Turning to his wife, he said, “You may go there now, Isabella. I will be along shortly.”

  But the queen was not to be so easily dismissed. “You cannot leave Marie in that dreadful cell overnight, John,” she declared stoutly. “I will not have it while her guilt is still in doubt. I demand that she receives better treatment.”

  “You ask too much, wife,” the king said impatiently. “It is almost certain that she is a murderess and, more importantly, that she has connived in treason. She will remain where she is until I say otherwise.”

  Isabella’s eyes flashed with stubbornness and she continued to argue on behalf of her attendant. As she did so, Nicolaa’s mind was racing. John now had both of the people he was sure were responsible for the murders in his clutches. The only fact of which he was not certain was whether or not the slayings were connected to his treatment of Arthur. She knew he dare not question either Chacal or Marie in an open court where the motive he dreaded might come to light, and she was certain this was the reason he had announced his intention of delaying Marie’s interrogation until the morning. Whether or not the pair had committed the murders for the reason John feared, she was certain that neither of them would survive the night. It could easily be proclaimed that Chacal had died from his injuries—which Miles had told her were extensive—and as for Marie, it could be said that she had hung herself rather than face the dreadful punishment that awaited her. There were mercenaries aplenty in the bail who would carry out the tasks for a bag of silver, especially the members of Chacal’s band, whose leader’s betrayal of their royal paymaster had placed their livelihood in jeopardy.

  This was the outcome she had hoped would not materialise. She had fervently prayed that Chacal and Marie would, once they were apprehended, a
dmit to being in the pay of Philip of France, or perhaps Hugh of Lusignan, and the threat that they were privy to John’s secret about Arthur be negated.

  She took a deep breath, her pulse racing. She looked around the company; except for Hubert Walter, she was the only one privy to the king’s secret and, from the consternation on the archbishop’s face, she knew that he, too, was perturbed. They were both aware that if Marie and Chacal were found dead before they could be questioned before witnesses, no one would bother to ponder on the manner in which they had died, for it would be felt they had met a just fate. Her hackles rose at the moral dilemma John was forcing upon her. Even though there was proof that the pair were murderers and deserved to die, if they were Bretons seeking vengeance for a grievous wrong done to their liege lord, did they deserve, in all honour, to suffer such an ignominious death? She had no answer, but of one thing she was certain, that she could not be party to such a deed.

  As John, exasperated and out of patience with his recalcitrant wife, began to order her to depart for the royal townhouse without further delay, Nicolaa stepped forward, her heart pounding. If she could keep one of the prisoners from harm, the other would be safe. “If I may be so bold, sire,” she said to the king, “I would suggest a solution that may allay the queen’s concern.”

  The king’s eyes narrowed with annoyance. “Do you so, lady?” he said in a sarcastic tone. “And what might that be?”

  “That the female prisoner be incarcerated overnight at the townhouse where I am staying,” Nicolaa replied. “There is an empty room on the uppermost floor that would be admirable for the purpose and my own men-at-arms can stand guard over her. I will undertake responsibility for her security.”